Friday, February 6, 2009

Prawn Noodles @ Restoran Yon Len Taman Tun Dr Ismail

I've heard so much about the prawn noodles at Restoran Yon Len at Taman Tun Dr Ismail that I just had to try it. We managed to do just that recently, but unfortunately, I was disappointed that the noodles did not lived up to all the hype surrounding it.
The coffee shop was packed when we arrived with nary an empty table in sight. We had to resort to standing next to the diners whilst they finish their food, just like the other diners who arrived before and after us. Unfortunately this resulted in upping my expectations. Heck, if the coffee shop is THIS POPULAR the food must be very good.
My immediate response after finally getting a table was to order the prawn noodles. I waited in quiet anticipation for it to finally arrive, which by the way, took longer than the rest of the food we ordered. The soup was ok, the noodles were too much but the accompaniments on the noodles were so little I had to practically dig for the few slices of shrimp and strands of beansprouts. Not to mention that the soup only so much as covered the noodles and before I even had a sip, the noodles had soaked up all the soup and I had to ask for a refill. I was plenty disappointed with the quality. It was unfortunately nowhere as good as the ones I had in Penang. I don't know if it was just my bad luck that on that one day I finally tried it, it didn't turn out as good as it was supposed to be.However, the saving grace came in the form of the fried kuey teow. It was excellent! Smooth rice noodles that practically slid down my throat. The noodles were fried with enough "wok hei" (that X factor for fried kuey teow!) and was so good we had 3 plates between 2 of us. Service was fast too!
We also tried the otak-otak that was sold at the little kueh stall at the entrance of the coffee shop. It was quite nice. The otak-otak is the Penang Nyonya version which is a soft custard with fish slices, quite unlike the Muar version. This is the otak-otak I grew up on, and it's how I like it. It's still not on par with the real version in Penang, but then again, I suppose beggars can't be choosers.We ordered a plate of Chinese sausages and roasted pork from the chicken rice stall and found it quite good too. Quite delicious!Restoran Yon Len is located at Jalan Tun Mohd Fuad 1 (at the end of the same row with Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen).

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